The 'roid in Spain drills mainly on the plain: Plucky Brit Mars robot laps up sun, sand and, er, simulated science A prototype Mars rover, named Charlie, has gone for a trundle around Spain’s Tabernas Desert this week, as scientists gear up for the real thing in 2021. The UK-built trundlebot was controlled by the ExoFiT team at the UK’s Harwell Space Cluster in Oxfordshire, 1,000 miles away from the sun and sangria of Spain where the …
If you don't understand by now that the EU is a rules-based union,
Yeah, we can all see that. Just look at how Italy obeys the rules on budgets, and Hungary on immigration, Ireland on taxes, or France on customs. The EU has rules, of course. Whether its members obey them is entirely dependent on how much money they will make/lose. If you don't understand that, you're never going to understand the EU.
ahhh, so it is more about Westminster not bending the rules
Yes, that is what is most perplexing - if only our Honourable Members of Parliament treated the EU rules the way they treated the rules regarding parliamentary expenses, we'd not be in this mess right now
"The EU has rules, of course."
The dilemma I see is that the UK was often the leader in drafting new EU rules. Said new rules were then submitted to each national government to implement as they saw fit, within the bounds of credibility. The UK always seemed to be the one that implemented them in the most draconian way possibly, to the letter and beyond. Then UK.gov blamed the EU for the new draconian rules. It's almost as if there has been a decades long plan to discredit the EU on behalf of the UK ot the UK has been using the EU while it could to get more power and now the EU or it's newer members, having lived under oppressive regimes, are no longer playing ball, hence Brexit.
British civil servants are still gold-plating EU directives even just before Brexit. Here's a quote from a story I read a few months back:
The Package Travel Regulations – designed to protect travellers who book flights and hotels online – will mean that B&Bs and hotels need extra insurance if they want to reserve guests a table at the hotel’s own restaurant or book them a taxi to a local pub. [...] The regulations, based on an EU directive, were intended to offer travellers the protection they would have if they booked through a travel agency. But the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy extended the rules to cover any service not part of the room rate – something no other EU country has done
And while searching for this one, another one came up although this one was from 2004:
Alone among EU countries, according to mountain sports companies, Britain is extending a Brussels directive on safety-at-height to leisure climbing, as well as the originally intended target of builders, steeplejacks and window cleaners.
Perhaps people's ire should be directed at Whitehall instead of the EU?
What does this even mean?
It means the EU are willing to offer a solution so that international treaties like the Good Friday Agreement can be upheld (e.g. put NI and the single market and customs union), but they won't allow say, a giant hole in the customs union border because the UK buys lots of prosecco and Mercedes and Audis and "they need us more than we need them" as that is in breach of other international treaties like the EU's own trade agreements with other countries and WTO rules.
So if the UK wants a FTA with the EU or WTO or no deal, that means huge border problems, if the UK wants EEA then that will also mean huge border problems as the EEA is another free trade area, and if the UK wants SM + CU then that means no border problems. Those are the only options available for the UK as those are the rules.
I'm not sure, will you be able to rock up with a Mars rover to do some testing in the desert just like that after no deal, FTA Brexit, or EEA without Customs Union Brexit?
ExoMars is an ESA mission. Any participating ESA members will happily support the testing and development of mission elements, regardless of whether other partners (like Russia/Roscosmos) are EU members.
I would think the dry valleys in Antarctica are a better fit for Mars given they are freakin cold as well as some of the driest places on earth. They are dry because snow sublimates away.
However I suspect Atacama is logistically more tractable. The US has used the lava fields on Hawai'i in the past for such things as well. But the dry valleys, while not as cold as Mars are pretty damn cold.
You're both bastards!
All this poor rover wants, is a nice holiday Where it can catch a few rays and get some trundling around done, to practise for the mission. And here's both of you trying to make it as cold and miserable as possible.
No wonder Opportunity has taken to hiding. Given what humans subject the poor thing to...
This is the voice of the Mysterons. We know that you can hear us Earthmen. It will be useless for you to resist for we have discovered the secret of reversing matter and we are going to build a wall to stop your robotic rovers from crossing our borders and attacking our shrubberies. Make Mars Great Again!
I thought the Mysterons were more worried about making Venus great again?
In which case I suspect they don't need to bother with a wall. The massive storms, wind, lighting, sulphuric acid clouds, 90 bar pressure and lead-melting temperature should put paid to any rover we're foolish enough to lob in their general direction.
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